Mk3 Cavalier Owners Club | Vauxhall Cavalier Dot Com

Great news! Nice to see something salvaged / repaired rather than binned and replaced!

Thought I'd restart this thread as exactly the same thing has just happened to me.

I tried to replace the thermostat on the LS as part of a major service, including PAS fluid, coolant flush, dizzy and rotor arm, both temp sensors etc.
I've been planning it for quite a while and doing it all with genuine parts but something always has to go wrong though doesn't it?

Pics to follow...

Well here it is:



Luckily I managed to remove one of them but the other two are locked down tighter than fort knox.
I think it was the original stat from the factory.

I think what I'm going to do is fit the new thermostat with one bolt and seal it up with lots of gasket sealant.
Hopefully this will last long enough for me to drive to my nearest garage. Then I'll just leave it for them to sort out. Really not in the mood for this sort of thing, not in this weather.

Well, I got some gasket sealant today and I believe it's done the trick for now.




Instead of using the GM branded Thermostat, I fitted a Wahler part from my spares. This was just in case the sealant messed up the GM one.




I left it to cure for half an hour then filled up the system again with coolant. Started her up (with a bit of help from the V6) and hey presto.
Left it to idle until the stat opened up and no leaks.
After that I took it for a good 20 mile run to recharge the battery and when I got back there were still no leaks and the header tank was still full to the line.

It could probably get by like this for a bit but I'm taking it to a garage tomorrow to have the old bolts extracted anyway.

I'm going to have to do what Mike did and get the cam belt and water pump changed too.

Quite annoying as I only had it done 10,000 miles ago.

My stat gone too, think some penetrating oil in there every day for 2 weeks then think about trying to remove it lol